The photography industry

Present-day manufacture of cameras and other photographic equipment is concentrated in mass-production plants that make most of the components (camera bodies, lenses, shutters, and other parts) on largely automated machines; the components are then assembled by semiskilled or skilled labour. Smaller manufacturers of low- and medium-priced cameras obtain components for assembly from such specialist suppliers as shutter manufacturers and lens producers. High-quality precision cameras are produced on a smaller scale with automated fabrication of the engineering components but much more extensive manual assembly by highly skilled technicians. Components and functions of every camera are tested at every production stage; less expensive cameras are usually batch-tested by a sampling procedure.

The raw material for lens manufacture covers a range of optical glasses of different optical characteristics. About 10 major worldwide glass producers supply the several dozen optical firms offering lenses of well-known brands. The glass is cast into blanks for specific lens elements and ground and polished to the required exact specifications, with the elements assembled in metal (sometimes plastic) mounts. Extensive production tests and optical performance checks safeguard quality standards.

Film base is produced either by coating a solution of the base material on large drums, where it solidifies (film casting), or by extrusion of plastics, such as polyester, in film extruders. For print materials, paper of suitable purity is coated with a barium sulfate emulsion in gelatin, to provide a smooth white surface, and then with the silver halide emulsion. Silver halide emulsions are made by mixing silver nitrate with a solution of alkali halide—typically potassium bromide and iodide—in gelatin. The silver halide then precipitates out as fine crystals. After cooling to a jelly, shredding, and washing, the emulsion is remelted and treated to increase speed and contrast. Colour sensitizers (and colour couplers for colour emulsions) and additives are introduced, and the gelatin emulsion is machine-coated on wide continuous webs of paper or film. Generally several coatings are applied—up to a dozen for certain colour films. Operations from emulsion mixing onward are carried on in total darkness. After cooling and drying, the material is batch-tested for consistent characteristics and then is cut and packed.

Photofinishing laboratories process most amateur and some professional photographers’ films and prints. In the 1980s, virtually all of the total business of the laboratories in the United States was in colour processing.

Photofinishing laboratories use machines that carry the films in spliced-together lengths or on racks through successive tanks of the processing solutions. Prints are usually made to standard formats on automatic enlargers, taking both the negatives and the paper in continuous rolls. The paper rolls of 250 or 500 feet are processed in continuous-strip processors, which deliver prints dry and ready for automatic cutting. Many printers have automatic exposure measurement based on overall negative density, with automatically controlled colour correction for colour negatives. High-capacity colour printers of this type can produce 2,000 to 3,000 prints per hour. Coding systems identify individual films and corresponding prints by customer or order number for final re-sorting. More exacting processing services grade colour negatives before printing by light transmission measurements through different colour filters; the resulting exposure data may be punched as edge codes in the film itself or programmed on perforated paper tape. When the tape is run through the printer together with the film, the perforations directly control the colour exposures and corrections. Advanced automatic printing systems may involve electronically controlled image enhancement.

Enlargements to special sizes and colour printing for professional photographers require individual enlarging by skilled personnel on conventional enlargers with advanced automation features of focusing, exposure measurement, and colour control. Other processing services include duplication of transparencies, various types of photocopying (partly on coin-operated copiers in public places), microfilming, and microfilm processing.